Certain orders have a charism to be cloistered monastic communities and the gift that they give the church the gift of their cloistered monastic prayer they pray for the world they intercede for the world they intercede for the brothers and sisters through their prayer certain other orders have a
Charism centered around mission they are centered around an apostolate maybe in a postulate to the poor helping the poor these orders are the missionary orders and their locus of unity is their activities the Dominican Order is unique the Dominican Order incorporates both for the Dominican we live a very robust
Monastic life of a monk but we also the a missionary active life of a preacher I think the balance between the concept of life in the active life is best illustrated by an image that st. Thomas Aquinas used at the end of the Saku Saku named Summa theologia
That is just as it is better to illumine than merely to shine so is it better to contemplate and to give to others the fruits of that contemplation than to merely contemplate and so as the letters at the end of our name would imply oh he
We are the order of creatures or no predicate or Oh everything in dominican life is centered around preaching the gospel so for a Dominican he lives a contemplative life for the sake of preaching the gospel in many ways his preaching is an overflow of his contempt of life
He does not pray and study for his own personal enrichment alone he prays and studies so that he can give to the world and enrich the world with the truths of the gospel I love being a Dominican because as a Dominican I have the opportunity to preach the gospel all
Over the world in any way that it needs to be preached
source
